Introducing Katie Hutchinson, New Youth Pastor at Selah Covenant Church

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By Erik Cave, Director of NextGen Ministries, PacNWC

Enjoy this interview with Katie Hutchinson, the new Youth Pastor at Selah Covenant Church

What is your personal and ministry background?

I am 21-years-old and a Selah, Washington native! I moved here with my mom, older brother, and older sister when I was 2-years-old and have called it “home” ever since. We were a church-going family and I loved it. I can’t remember where and when, but I dedicated my life to Jesus at a very young age and never turned back.

However, it wasn’t until sophomore year of high school that it really became personal. I began attending youth group at Yakima Foursquare Church and pressing in more than ever before, immersing myself in church as much as possible. Finally, at my last summer camp (as a student), just two weeks before leaving for college, I was called into ministry. After leaving camp, I switched my major to one in theology with a focus in ministerial leadership and left for Seattle Pacific University. While I loved SPU, I felt unsettled during my time there and felt a pull from God to go back home. After finishing out fall quarter, I moved back home and began interning at Yakima Foursquare with the children’s, youth, and young adult programs for a little over a year. After interning, I was offered the position as the Preteen Pastor, which I gladly accepted and held for nearly 2 years, before being hired on as the Youth Pastor at Selah Covenant Church. During my time at Yakima Foursquare, I met my amazing husband, Jonathan, who was the worship pastor at the time. We have been happily married for nearly 8 months now and just added a small pup to our little family!

What are you passionate about in ministry right now?

I am passionate about communicating true, authentic, Christ-like love to the youth of this generation. If my exposure to young people over the last few years of ministerial work has taught me anything, it is that these youth crave authenticity, especially in the form of love. Too often I am seeing kids coming from broken homes, dealing with serious mental health issues, and turning to unhealthy sources of coping. I want to be a pastor who empowers other leaders to press in. I want to be a pastor who answers those 3 AM phone calls and reminds that child that there is someone advocating and praying for them. I want to be a reflection of who Jesus is, and I want these kids to know who Jesus is.

Youth group changed my life the minute I walked in as a sophomore because my youth pastor at the time invested in me. Him and his wife invited me into their family and taught me what it looks like and feels like to receive and give Christ-like love to those who need it. Right now, I know of too many kids who feel unsafe or unloved for a multitude of reasons. I want to remind them that there is someone who loves them in ways they could never even imagine, and that that is reason enough to press on and tell the world of that same love.

How can we pray for you?

Prayers for my family are greatly appreciated! My husband and I just transitioned from a church we called home for 7 years, and while change is amazing and we trust that this is a God-led thing, there is always a period of transition that feels uncomfortable in different ways. Beyond that, please be praying for our students! This pandemic has affected a lot of things and a lot of people in different ways, but my heart is breaking right now for the young people I get to serve, and the ones I have never met. And of course, prayer for our community as we rise out of this; that God would bring a change like never before and we would begin to see a new Israel.

Five things you didn’t know about Katie:

One thing I couldn’t live without:

One thing I could not live without is water. Yes, I know that is quite literal, but I also LOVE water more than any other beverage. If I haven’t drank 2 of my 40-ounce hydro flasks in a day, something is definitely wrong


One thing I cannot resist:

One thing I cannot resist is a sweet treat. Whether it’s candy, ice cream, pastries, or fruit, I have a big sweet tooth. It drives my husband bonkers when I bring candy into the house!

The career I would choose if not this one:

If I had a career other than this one, I would probably be a teacher or a social worker. I love kids so much and can’t imagine not working closely with them.

What I would most like to tell 13 year old Katie:

I would tell 13-year-old me two things: 1. Stop plucking your eyebrows to non-existence, you’ll regret it later. 2. Beauty is not dictated by a number on the scale or what you look like in the mirror.

The best book I have ever read:

The best book I have ever read is hands down The Diary of Anne Frank. I love WWII history, and I love the honesty of her entries. I first read it in 4th grade and have read it dozens of times since.

[Click Here] to visit Katie’s profile on Facebook

[Click Here] to visit Selah Covenant’s web page

Over 1000 Bags and Boxes of Food Distributed Through Kent Covenant During Quarantine

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By Marisa Carpenter

Shortly after the Stay Home Stay Healthy order was announced, Pastor Keith came to me with an idea of putting together grocery bags that would be available for pickup for families in need of food. We put together about 20 grocery bags using food from our food pantry. The first day that we started we had 1 person come and get food.

The following week we had about 20, then 40, then 60, until we got to the point where we were putting together 80 bags of food every week.

We partnered with the administrative staff at a local middle school to identify families that were in need of food, but without transportation, and dropped the groceries off at their doorstep.

With the ministry growing so rapidly, we had to put out a call to the congregation to donate the items we needed to fill the bags. They came through for us in a big way. We were getting so many donations we couldn’t fit them all in the food pantry! While filling the bags on Friday, it was a common occurrence for us to realize that we were short a dozen loaves of bread or jars of peanut butter; and just as we were about to run to the store to buy more, a car would pull up to donate the exact amount of food we needed. Moments like this made it impossible to deny the work that God was doing.

We’ve developed partnerships with local organizations that donated fresh food and produce. Other churches that were doing similar things would bring us their leftover produce to give out. The city was coming together and creating connections that hadn’t existed before to serve our brothers and sisters. Though the number of families coming for food continued to grow, we always had enough food to serve them.

One thing that had been weighing on our hearts, was how to get food to people without transportation; those who didn’t have the access or ability to drive to our church and pick up groceries. About two weeks ago we got a call from a community organizer working with the Pacific Coast Fruit Company, they had heard about the work we were doing and wanted to partner with us to distribute 25lb boxes filled with fresh dairy and produce from the USDA Farmers to Families program. We agreed to take about 40 boxes, thinking that was how many we could manage to pass out; but they came back and asked us if we could find a way to distribute 750 boxes. In the matter of a few short days we expanded our operations from one distribution location to five. In addition to passing out groceries at the church, we also distribute the fresh produce and dairy boxes at four apartment complexes in our community.

As our ministry continued to grow, we realized that we had to give it a name. We feel like our story has a clear parallel to one from the Bible; that of feeding the masses with just a few fishes and loaves. Every week we have more and more people reaching out in need of food; and not once have we ever run out or had to turn someone away.

[Click Here] to learn more about Kent Covenant’s Community Assistance Ministry and make a donation.

Touch: We Need to be Together

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By Greg Yee, Superintendent, PacNWC

I started writing this before the tragedies of last week.  Stick with me.

One of the wonderful benefits of online services is my ability to be with multiple churches on Sundays.  I love that I could be in Spokane, in Portland and at our home church all in one morning.  I’m guessing that you yourself have visited more churches in the last three months than you’ve visited in the past 20 years!

We certainly miss seeing body language, feeling volume, negotiating space, shaking hands, hugging – all the physicality of togetherness.  We’re not all touchy people, “not a hugger,” but I think we all realize as we’ve distanced, how much we miss physical contact.  Creator’s imprint hardwires us to be physically connected with each other.  It is the nature of the Trinity and is the image that we are created in. 

I’m sure you heard the story about the 10-year old girl who created a clear plastic “hug curtain” because she missed her grandparent’s touch so much.  We ache for touch.  I’m taken back to Psych 1 where I first learned about Harry Harlow’s classic study with baby monkeys.  They developed abnormally when they were in isolation from their siblings. They also were healthier with a furry wire-framed surrogate mother providing no milk than a bare wire frame that did provide milk.  Monkeys need warm, furry, touch more than food! 

Bonding and intimacy needs tactile interaction.  It needs human exchange.  It certainly explains why social distancing has been so life-sucking – even for introverts!  It is our divine design to feel each other.

There are two Greek verbs for “knowing.” One describes cognitive knowledge, like knowing the names of colors. The other describes intimacy and experiential knowledge.  It is used to describe the physical joining together of husband and wife in procreation.  We can only intimately know somebody when we draw close and touch.  Experiencing others only occurs when there is life to life connectedness. 

Enter these last three weeks – a micro-sample of hundreds of years of the same.  George Floyd in Minnesota, Ahmaud Arbery in Atlanta, and Breonna Taylor in Louisville are merely recent examples.  We cannot act like this is somehow different and now we’re shocked.  We’ve heard and read about these things so many times in the past, but chose to not draw closer.  Don’t get it twisted, we are not just seeing this new because we have video-capable cell phones.  In 1991, 7 years prior to the first iPhone, we had very clear video of Rodney King being beaten by multiple peace officers who were later not found guilty- but no.  We saw LA burn and looted.  What did we do?  What has changed in our hearts and in our actions?  We see black and brown bodies mistreated and murdered over and over again
injustices being justified and we move on
and away


The neighborhood I grew up in Oakland, CA was developed in the 1930’s.  On the plat of this exciting new community, it declared that no Orientals or Africans were allowed to live there.  Fast forward through WWII, and the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement, my parents were able to purchase a home there.  Seven years separate my oldest brother and me.  It is very telling to look at our 5th grade pictures.  He is the only Asian in an all Caucasian class.  I am the only Asian in an all African American class.  We have a long history of moving away.  

We grow “out of touch.” 

We lack proximity.  We aren’t feeling each other’s breath
or lack there of.  It makes us too uncomfortable.  We categorize it away as “political.”  “Oh that’s those backward folks in the South or Midwest”  We hide behind religious platitudes that excuses us from the work.  It costs me too much


We need to “get in touch.”  It is the way of Jesus. 

Incarnation/presence

Other’s interests before ours

Willingness to die

Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind.  Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus.  Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death — even death on a cross!

Read that again.

I also must add that the pain is heavy for other peoples: Native Peoples, Latino/as, and Asian Americans. There are similar strains of feeling unsafe, unfairly targeted, stolen from, limited, used, and kicked out.  The term the Covenant uses is correct.  Our ministry and commitment is for racial righteousness.  The races are from God and help reflect the beauty and immensity of his image. We long for wholeness and rightness in our agonizingly racialized society.  This work of the gospel can only happen when we draw closer.  This pandemic has taught us to not touch anything and to stay far apart.  But this racial pandemic calls us to walk closer and touch each other more than ever.  It is the close and experiential knowing we need.  We are not safe and right just in our own worlds.  We are incomplete and will absolutely languish without each other’s touch. 

Therefore, my beloved family, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.  

1 Cor 15:58

Introducing Peter Gothold, the new Director of Worship and Arts at Kent Covenant Church

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By, Erik Cave, Director of NextGen Ministries, PacNWC

Enjoy this interview with Peter Gothold, the Director of Worship and Arts at Kent Covenant Church in Kent, WA.

What is your personal and ministry background?

I grew up in church, the product of several generations of pastors and musicians on both sides. I swore I would never be a church musician. God wasn’t impressed. Through years of playing guitar or drums for youth group, InterVaristy large groups, and always playing at church, God began to develop in me a love of leading his people in song, and a deep love for the bride of Christ, the local Church. I did a few youth internships after college, but quickly learned I was meant for something else. In 2010 I got my first call to full time vocational ministry at a small Covenant church plant in the San Francisco Bay Area. I was there for 9 years, and learned and grew so much as a disciple and a leader. In the fall of 2019 I got the call to come to the PNW to start at Kent Covenant Church, and have LOVED being here so far; great people, great heart for the community, and a great city to call home! I’ve been married to Paola for 13 years, and have 2 boys: Peter Junior (PJ, age 7), and Tobias (Toby, age 4). Kent’s a great town for young boys, and we feel so lucky that God has led us this far. We also have 2 diametrically opposed cats: Ella (age 11 and the embodiment of evil), and Tim (age 8 and outrageously nice and affectionate).

What are you passionate about in ministry right now?

At the moment where I feel most passionate in ministry is helping the church become a legitimate source of hope online as we have seen the power of online church in this season of Stay Home, Stay Healthy. We are all learning so much so fast, and what I have seen is that online services are not going away, which gives us a new exciting way to bring the Gospel to where people are! How we do that, how we construct and present our services to an online community is an exciting new challenge, and sparks my imagination and heart as I think how we can be the Church in a new way!

How can we pray for you?

I know I’m not alone in asking for prayer for energy and endurance. This has been a really hard season for pastors, and I’m not immune. Producing online services, doing countless hours of video editing while caring for people and trying to plan for an unknown future that changes daily and hourly based on local, state, and national leaders has been exhausting. I long for stability (ha!) and to know what things will look like in 6 months (double ha!), but since that is an unrealistic hope, I pray for peace and strength to move forward in faith.

Five things you didn’t know about Peter:

My 3 most overused words:

Dude. Awesome. Coffee.

Three traits that define me:

Loyal. Musical. Nerd.

The one thing I cannot resist:

Guitars (current number: lucky 13)

Best place I’ve traveled:

Prague. It is SO beautiful and rich with history and amazing food!

What would I most like to tell 13 year old Peter:

You. Don’t. Know. Everything. Enjoy learning, practice more, read more, listen more. 

[Click Here] to see Peter’s profile on Facebook

[Click Here] to visit Kent Covenant Church’s web page

Getting to Know Bread and Wine, a Community in SE Portland

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By Sharad Yadav, Lead Pastor, Bread and Wine

The word “church” – just like the word “family” – means radically different things to different people, depending on what your experience has been. Some people remember it as the last place they were loved, a time when they felt like their lives were on track or a hopeful disposition about their future.  Of course the opposite is true, too. It can be the deepest memory of betrayal and abuse.  And of course for even more people it conjures something less vivid than either of those things, which can be worse. It is a tepid, well-meaning but desperately out of touch assembly of uninteresting people, forced upon us in youth. Those reactions summarize my ministry environment in Portland pretty well.  It has a small population of people who love the church, a larger population of people who are disgusted with it and the majority of people whose indifference is only faintly flavored with love or disgust, like the barely detectable peach-pear aftertaste of a LaCroix. 

When I moved to Oregon from Idaho in 2013 to help lead an independent evangelical church called Bread & Wine, I immediately felt more suited to the religiously cynical environment than anywhere else I’d ministered. Even my college age conversion (from an adolescent, Nietszche fetishizing, punk rocking atheism) began with skepticism about my skepticism.  A subsequent hunger for certainty thrust me into a fundamentalist environment which ended up nurturing my cynicism even more deeply. My developing faith began to mirror my childhood racial identity as a second generation Indian in a rural community: it was an ever tightening tension. I am neither American nor Indian but somehow both; my passionate relationship with God has always been characterized by an internal dialogue of doubt.

Portland had turned these alienating dimensions of my personhood into a profound opportunity for connection. Its story of racial violence is something that lives inside of me.  The tension in all the individual quests for spiritual meaning alongside a pervasive skeptical posture maps the dynamic of my own soul. For that reason, ministering in this city often feels like ministering to myself.  But that, too, can generate a profound feeling of loneliness, especially in an independent church. Pastoring in an urban environment had all its own challenges, with the constant change and rotating core of people carrying us into the work of re-planting. But the need for belonging, which characterized so much of my own journey, became unbearable.  I felt invisible. God heard my cry over the last few years in Jon Lemmond, a Covenant pastor in Salem. Having been a close friend and pastor of my twin in his previous post in Santa Barbara (where my brother is a theologian at Westmont College), I happily served as a genetically identical substitute. It was that relationship which exposed me to the wider church family of Covenanters. In the relationships that developed, with Joel Sommer (Access Covenant), Stephen Bjorlin (Portland Covenant) and Nate Salinas (Sunset Covenant), I became visible.

Standing on the border of a new reality conjures both hope and fear. The last significant induction into community I experienced was in my conversion; but the belonging I was offered in that fundamentalist tradition came at the steep cost of my selfhood. This environment was to become the soil in which my roots were surrounded throughout my early discipleship, seminary training and the entirety of my ministerial life. Making my way out of the wilderness has brought me to many false frontiers in the quest for belonging. In an interview Greg Yee once mentioned that they’d never had a church engage as much as ours before coming into the family. I’d guess that story has something to do with it. 

One of the immediate signals that we’d found “our people” was the highly relational way we were invited into the family.  Our leadership team spent several months connecting with the PacNWC staff as we evaluated our fit. I had a few meals with the illustrious Peter Sung, as we discussed my ministry journey, giftedness and obstacles until we decided that the best way to tumble into the family was as a church plant. Dawn Taloyo met with and corresponded our team. Erik Cave made himself available to our children’s ministry team.  I was invited into a multiethnic pastoral cohort that provided a place to process the unique challenges of my own identity – for the first time in 20 years of pastoring. I attended Midwinter where I could more closely investigate the culture of the Covenant and wander right into the middle of the family’s open wounds around the boundaries of fellowship and human sexuality. In all of that engagement the burning question for me was, “Is this safe?” Is this a safe place to prosecute my experience of reality, to flower into the redeemed version of myself, to pursue beloved community, to open myself in vulnerable relationship, to listen together for the voice of God?  One of the most beautiful insights of the Pietist tradition is that the answers to those questions are all rooted in freedom of conscience. 

That’s what we detected most profoundly in the Covenant family, which stirs our longing to call it home. This is what my soul has hungered for in a Christian community, not the agreement which comes from the list of doctrinal perspectives, ministry methods or historical figures we happen to share – but from the holy ground upon which our God engages the heart.  Our fellowship isn’t based on the hardened, finished doctrinal, practical or heritage we have chosen, the end product of having struggled with what we believe. It is based on that space inside the kiln, where we encounter God in the process of our spiritual formation, where the Spirit is doing His work. I want to be part of a community that can wait in the fire until Christ Himself removes us from the oven, where the struggle is the holy ground. That’s what freedom of conscience means – the honoring of the process in one another. 

COVID-19 has delayed us in the process of coming into the Covenant. The assessment track we were pursuing froze along with everything else in the societal seizure of this pandemic. The potential funding we were pursuing along with the process of ordination has been smothered in uncertainty. But not our sense of belonging. It’s the one thing that doesn’t seem to be in question. It’s hard to overstate the strength it has given me, not only to minister to skeptical people in uncertain times, but to carry my own skepticism and uncertainty before the God who shapes me in the fire.

One of the reasons I love the name of our church, Bread & Wine, is because it’s the symbol Jesus used to communicate how God wants to meet human beings – not in a temple or elaborate ritual, but around a table where people are invited to bring who they really are.  We are invited to gather around a representation of God that is unlike the easy certainty of fundamentalism or the self-confidence of atheism. In the Eucharist we come to a God who is broken on the cross like bread is torn at the table. He is someone who suffers like us, suffers with us and suffers for us. He says “father forgive them” not as someone above it all, but from the vulnerability of his own nakedness on the cross.

Our hope is to be a safe place for people to ask hard questions about what their lives mean.  We want the reality of God’s love to be seen, heard and felt among us.  The forgiveness we’ve found in Christ creates security to carry the tensions inside us without being drummed out of the community or labeled unworthy of love.  For now, at least, it seems like Bread & Wine is that kind of place. For the sake of our city, as much as ourselves, I’m hopeful that coming into the family will ensure it stays that way.

[Click Here] to find out more about Bread and Wine Community

[Click Here] to support Bread and Wind with a financial gift

Introducing John and Karen Olson, New Associate Co-Pastors for Youth at McMinnville Covenant

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By Erik Cave, Director of NextGen Ministries, PacNWC

Enjoy this interview with John and Karen Olson, the new Associate Co-Pastors for Youth at McMinnville Covenant.

What is your personal and ministry background?

John’s hometown is Burlington, Iowa, and Karen’s is Hartford, New York. We’re both pastors’ kids, and we moved around quite a bit growing up. When we met, we had in common that we both moved to a new state for our senior year of high school. We also both majored in Bible and communications in college, but neither of us intended to join “the family business.”

As newlyweds, God began to draw us to church ministry through our neighborhood church in Chicago. We then spent 10 years in pastoral ministry at a church on the Oregon coast, before being called to Mac Cov this spring. We’re thrilled to be serving as a co-associate pastor team—we’re at our best when we’re working together.

What are you passionate about in ministry right now?

This is such a unique time to join a new church family! Without the usual ways of connecting in person, we’re passionate about finding creative ways to get to know the Mac Cov family and care for their spiritual and emotional needs in this challenging season. We’re learning how to do Zoom youth group and livestream church, and praying that God can use our imperfect efforts to help our community know God’s love and compassion.

How can we pray for you?

Our relocation to McMinnville was delayed several times, so we’re just now getting to move into our new home. We would love prayer for our family’s transition—we have four elementary school-aged kids who are experiencing their new church and school almost entirely online. We all long to be able to develop community and feel at home.


Five things you didn’t know about John and Karen

1.  Where is your favorite place to be?

We love to be outdoors together as a family. Hiking, family bike rides, camping—we’re all about exploring the Pacific Northwest together.

2. What is your favorite thing to do?

John enjoys woodworking and playing guitar, and Karen likes hiking and writing. Together, we love exploring new places on foot—our first dates were walking miles around Chicago in the winter, and we’ve never stopped going on long walks together.

3.  What’s the weirdest job you’ve ever had?

John was a DJ at a roller-skating rink, so he has excellent Hokey Pokey skills. Karen worked at a nursery, so she can spend hours alone with a greenhouse full of geraniums.

4.  What would you do (for a career) if you weren’t doing this?

When she’s not pastoring, Karen also works as a spiritual director and a communications consultant. She’s been having fun researching public art on the Oregon Coast for a client this spring. John worked in radio broadcasting before becoming a pastor, and would probably still be hosting concerts and giving the weather report if not for God’s redirection.

5.  Tell us something that might surprise us about you.

Karen’s ancestors came to Oregon on the Oregon Trail and settled in the Willamette Valley, where they eventually had a U-pick orchard and fruit stand north of Salem. Moving back to the valley feels a bit like coming full circle. John, meanwhile, was Midwest born and raised, and had never been to Oregon before meeting Karen—but it’s home now.

May You Be Built Up As You Grow in Unity and Unify in Mission

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By Greg Yee, Superintendent, PacNWC

It was fun to blaze a new trail as we held the first ever online conference annual meeting in the Covenant.  When talking with Pastor Daron Jagodzinske (Alive, Poulsbo) a couple of weeks ago, he joked and declared that he thought it would be our largest ever.  It wasn’t quite that, but certainly a much larger meeting than normal with over 150 delegates from 50 churches that were seated and 160 individuals that came into the “general conferee” stream over YouTube Live.  Of course that included viewers like my mom though!

We ran much longer than we thought (so sorry delegates!), but we were so pleased with everything going smoothly, essential business accomplished, lessons learned (fill out your evaluation please!), watching all those behind the scenes serve Jesus, and you all, so diligently and excellently (go team!), and sensing God’s overall favor.  We give Him all the glory and honor.

The one regret I did have is that I ended up cutting out part of what I was going to share at the end of my report that I was able to share with our ministers during the Ministerial Association Annual Meeting an hour earlier.  I reflected on Ephesians 4:11-13.

So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.  

This passage is often referred to as the APEST or the “five-fold gifts of the Spirit” passage: apostle, evangelist, prophet, shepherd, teacher.  It is seen as an essentials list for the church to grow, mature, and flourish.  Don’t we all want “the whole measure of the fullness of Christ”!  If you haven’t already, I highly recommend that you read Alan Hirsch’s works on the five-fold gifts and the mission of the church overall.  Check out Forgotten Ways, The Permanent Revolution, The Shaping of things to Come, 5Q: Reactivating the Original Intelligence and Capacity of the Body of Christ, and his most recent Reframation: Seeing God, people, and Mission Through Reenchanted Frames.  I am inspired by Hirsch’s convictions.  If you are less familiar with the five-fold gifts, here’s his primer.

I challenged our ministers and will do so here to look at these gifts as areas of focus in your church as well.  Let’s get through each. 

Apostles – This gift have become front and center with Stay at Home.  This is our expansion impulse.  In this area we are thinking about bridging to new opportunities, going to new places, exploring new ideas, and starting new things.  Being forced out of our normal rhythms and into online spaces demanded us to let this often dormant gift – because we don’t like change – to flex its muscles.  There has been such a beautiful and inspiring explosion of creativity and intentionality these days.  We’ve seen greater intentionality to connect with neighbors and serve our communities.  We’ve moved out of our buildings to make connections outside.  We’ve become more sensitive to the vulnerable and the under-resourced.  How do we not muzzle this gift when things begin to shift out of quarantine?  How do we keep exploring and experimenting?  How do we keep stepping out in boldness and faith? 

Prophets – This is the gift that points us to what needs to change.  It’s the gift that calls out what needs to stop and calls us to better understand what fidelity to God should look like.  We are learning important lessons about what is truly necessary and what isn’t in these days.  As we move ahead, it is an opportune time to shed practices and programs that have kept us from our true identity as the Church.  Let’s not be like God’s people that didn’t listen to the prophets and kept following their own ways, preferences, and comforts.  What needs to change?  What do we need to let go of? 

Evangelists –  We’ve seen larger numbers logging into Sunday services.  With our new rhythms, we’re having more conversations with people in our spheres.  We’ve become even more aware of our human fragility and more sensitive to eternal realities that weigh in the balance.  As God opens up new opportunities for people to hear and experience him, how do we fan this always-too-small flame?  We are missionaries.  We are practicing expert disciple-makers.  We are carriers of God’s shalom in our towns and cities.  We are ambassadors of reconciliation.  We are friends on mission together.  You will absolutely need to put a concerted effort and commit extra energy into this.  Don’t lose this mission moment as you relaunch, essentially like church plants.  You will need to pour specific attention into this because it always gets diminished because we are selfish beings.  Let us not be reluctant givers of God’s gifts.  Let our generous hearts lead us in evangelism. 

Shepherd – Generally speaking, Covenant pastors and churches are more focused around this and the next gift.  This gift and area of ministry is vitally need to help minister amidst the trauma that’s been experienced during this time with economic and relational stresses, losses of milestones (funerals, weddings, graduations, etc), moral injury medical staff and first responders have been experiencing, fear of disease/death especially for our older folks, separation from loved ones,… shepherds and shepherding ministries are some of what we’ve done so well and I know we’ll continue to do well.  Shepherds will also need to help guide us into next steps as we traverse new and treacherous terrain.  Shepherds will keep us together while we keep moving ahead. 

Teachers – We’ve learned a lot about new methods and found new opportunities to teach and learn.  We’ve learned a lot about our the place of our preaching ministries, closed-end online class opportunities, and creative discipling.  We must capture these good lessons and see what we carry forward with us.  We also must make sure we foster a culture of being life-long learners.  We must avoid being full of too much knowledge.  We cannot get stuck living in a world of ideas in a way that doesn’t result into transformed lives and kingdom action.  What we’ve done in the past is a foundation for us, but it is not the roadmap into the future.  What are we learning about our complex mission field?  May our growing knowledge be inseparably wedded with our evolving, expanding missional work. 

So, in all of these considerations, my prayer coming out of our Annual Meeting Celebration is that you will be built up, as you grow in unity and unify in mission.  I pray that you continue to grow into the fullness of Christ and overflow with hope.  May the five-fold gifts be present in your church.  May these areas of ministry be ever growing in your church.  As you continue to follow Jesus in these days, I pray that life and ministry would clarify as you are filled and empowered by the Holy Spirit. 

Unplugged – 2020 Covenant Men’s Retreat

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By Monty Harmon, Covenant Men’s Retreat Planning Team

The 2020 Covenant Men’s Retreat occurred in early March at Cascades Camp and Conference Center before social distancing became our norm.  Ninety-six men gathered to hear messages from four of our conference pastors– Jim Sequeira (Vancouver), Ben Zabel (Shoreline), Mike Thomas (Renton), and Rob Fairbanks (Spokane)–and our Worship Leader and Spanish interpreter, Gustavo Sandrigo (Kent). 

Hygiene was a focus.  The retreat started off with reminding the men  to wash their hands and use protective greeting measures such as a head nod, elbow bump, precarious foot pound, or bow.

Our pastors challenged the men to “unplug” from their devices and engage with God and others using illustrations from the Matrix.  Our four gifted pastors encouraged those present to take the red pill and see how deep they can get with God by:

  1. Entering the world to invite others to immigrate and have hope in the Kingdom of God using the Cross as the doorway. 
  2. Realizing in this world we tend to show up and never actually be present and challenging them to unplug and be present around others. 
  3. Understanding just showing up is not enough, we need to be intentional to engage in God’s work. 
  4. Knowing that to be blessed requires us to make a decision regarding whatwe are willing to do for God and others to be blessed.
  5. Treating God’s word as our food and stop only eating on Sundays.  We must avoid this starvation diet and be a tree planted by Living Water (Ps 1) daily drinking up His nourishment. 
  6. Finding people to “wakeup”, introducing them to the reality of God’s world, and training them to live in it; knowing their citizenship and their hope is in God’s Kingdom and His heaven. 
  7. Striving to be like Neo, who failed “the jump” in the first movie but in the end he could fly!

Evening activities were wild this year.  Pickleball and Nerf wars were new and likely to be repeated.  Virtual reality glasses and a ten foot Super Smash Brothers video game competed with the movie breakout and steaks by the campfire Saturday evening. There were no outbursts from card playing adults in the game room as  1000 nerf bullets were fired on “armed individuals” only. It was a great training ground for children, dads, and granddads to Unplug and interact with each other.

In the end, a good time was had by all and every male went home a better ambassador for the Kingdom. The camp benefits each year as some men volunteer to clear trails and prepare the camp for the coming season.   The foliage on the Red Wing Marsh Trail was cleared to reveal views of the previously hidden body of water.  Be sure to walk the trail this summer and watch for flyers on next year’s retreat and register early. Next year’s retreat is March 12-14 2021.

[Click Here] to visit the PacNWC Covenant Men Facebook Group

Seattle-Area Pastor’s Family Reaches Out to Quarantined Seniors

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Chaplain Greg Asimakoupoulos

By Greg Asimakoupoulos, Chaplain, Covenant Shores

Pastor Rebecca Worl of Cedar Creek Covenant Church made the stay-at-home edict at Covenant Living at the Shores a little less lonely recently. Becca and her family created homemade greeting cards for the residents in the assisted living wing at the Shores.

For Becca, who has been a guest preacher at the Covenant Living Sunday morning worship service several times, the residents are like extended family. When she heard that the campus was closed off to all visitors (including family), her heart broke. She wanted to find a tangible way to express her love and remind her older friends they were not forgotten. So with construction paper, markers and glue this “working from home” mom found a way to counteract the impact of the coronavirus.

On a Sunday morning Becca drove up to the entrance to our campus and dropped off a grocery bag filled with handcrafted creations. These words from Scripture, lyrics from hymns and positive messages were personally delivered. You can see Becca dropping off a bag in the image at the top of this page.

Cards written by the Worl family

The reactions from the residents was heartwarming. You would have thought they’d been given a hundred dollars. The cards are proudly displayed on the doors to the apartments or curio shelves or on the wall by their beds.

The staff at the Shores has been tireless in their efforts to keep the campus protected. For the duration of the outbreak, meals are being delivered to the residents since the dining rooms are closed. Staff make daily runs to the local grocery store and pharmacy for those in independent living to limit community exposure. In-house devotions and fitness workouts are broadcast daily on the closed-circuit TV system so residents can stay engaged in their apartments. And the abundance of caution by campus leadership has paid off. There are currently no active cases on the campus and community morale is very high.

To lift the spirits of the 350 residents who remain “sheltered in place,” the staff leads a daily procession down the main street of campus (while maintaining social distancing). The 4 o’clock “Daily Wave” gives the community a chance to stay connected while separated. The staff walks and waves to the residents while singing songs like “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands,” “We Shall Overcome” and “You are My Sunshine.” The residents sing along and wave back from their patios, decks and open windows. On a recent “Daily Wave” staff paraded with a banner and sang Happy Birthday outside the apartment of the Shores’ most recent centenarian who stood on her outdoor balcony beaming.

This story was also featured in a completely different article with additional information on the Covenant Companion Website. [Click Here] to see the article.

Take a Page From the Book of Psalms

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Good Friday 2020

By Dawn Taloyo, Director of Pastoral and Congregational Care, PacNWC

Lent 2020 began on February 26th.  Do you remember what life was like then? On Ash Wednesday we were contemplating what we might give up for Lent or what new rhythm or spiritual discipline we might add. I was already “sheltering in place” and WFH (working from home) as I was recovering from rotator cuff surgery. With my arm in a pretty hefty sling and unable to drive, my husband suggested that I had already “given up an arm” for Lent. A month later, much of the world joined what was by then my familiar routine. I chuckled when I read Andy Crouch’s post saying, “Honestly hadn’t planned on giving up quite this much for Lent.”  No one did.

With no idea of what was ahead, I fortuitously decided to read through the Book of Psalms for Lent.  Following a reading plan provided by the YouVersion Bible App, I embarked on a pilgrimage of approximately 4-5 ancient prayers a day. My preference was to listen, either as I walked or while following along with my open Bible and pencil in hand to underline and make notes in the margins.

I call it “fortuitous” because marinating in these prayers has been a gift during this disorienting season. The Psalms open up and expand my prayer language. They give me permission to feel the complete roller coaster of emotions and express them to God. On any given day, I would hear the Psalmist cry out,

“You have rejected us, God
You have shown your people desperate times
”

Psalm 60

“Hear my cry, O God; listen to my prayer. From the ends of the earth I call to you, I call as my heart grows faint
.”

Psalm 61

“Truly my soul finds rest in God; my salvation comes from him. Truly he is my rock and my salvation…”

Psalm 62

All of those examples are from one day, or one page in my NIV Bible. Daily I listened to prayers that moved through anger, disappointment, longing, thanksgiving, and remembrance. Sometimes all in one Psalm and sometimes over the course of many.

Now I hear the same range of feelings reflected in any given Zoom meeting with colleagues, family, or friends. One person is finding the “silver lining” and feeling grateful. Another is despondent and lonely, while another is frustrated with ineffectiveness and unable to find center. Another feels calm and enjoying the slower life. All real. All legitimate responses.

And, God is present in it all. He is not put off or offended by our honest emotions, nor ranking our responses or prayer for that matter. If he was, then how is it that all these prayers found their way into His sacred scriptures?

My recommendation? Take a page from the Psalms. Any page. Sit with whatever words or feelings are expressed and make it your own. Even rewrite the Psalm to contextualize it for today. The words may roll, or they may sit in the back of your throat, depending on your day. But, don’t feel the need to soften or de-emphasize or correct the words or your feelings. The important thing is you are praying. Even when expressing the hardest feelings, the Psalmist was addressing them to God – the God who hears. And that’s what matters.